Guild Wars 2

Can someone give me advice about which class / spec is best to provide some utility / support in fractals?

Guardian. Don’t be afraid to get to know all your utilities. Use reflection where you should. Have sword, focus, gswd, scepter, then the other weapons if you want – hammer, shield, staff. I personally like radiance and hitting F1 a lot. >.>

I say hands down Guardian with Mesmer coming in a not to to distant second.

Guardians bring lots of buffs with reflect.

The Mesmer brings portal’s, reflect, stealth, and to some affect timewarp.

Which weapons do you generally use on your guardians? Is staff only swapped in before fights?

Is guardian much more supportive than warrior?

Sword/focus mainly, swapping to burst/pull/blind with greatsword. Staff you can swap in for might before a fight, and can be used for the few times you might need to kite lots of things (in the dredge cage if you use a kite tactic).

I’ll swap out greatsword for scepter (making it scepter/focus) whenever I need range.

Warrior has some fantastic team buffs like FGJ as well as Unique ones like banners that can up the group’s damage potential. However, if you wanna carry a group, the Guardian provides Aegis, Protection, Reflect, Stability, Blinds and more that I’m sure I missed.

Hmm okay thanks I’ll give it a try. What do you guys use as weapons in WvW? Just curious.

In WvW staff is practically obligatory, unless you plan to always roam in small groups/alone. Second weapon may vary depending on your preferences (gs is quite popular, but practically all guardian weapons work well if yu know how to use them).

In PvE staff is less useful (except for zerg farming, where it is the primary choice). My personal preference is scepter+focus/hammer, but sword+focus and GS are also solid melee choices.
Generally (especially in dungeons) you should always have a range set, and melee set.

Shyhalu.4891:

Which weapons do you generally use on your guardians? Is staff only swapped in before fights?

Is guardian much more supportive than warrior?

I don’t have a easy answer for you My main weapon is Hammer. Hammer is slow but the protection from the one skill plus the CC’s with altruistic healing is extremely nice.

My off hand I tend to switch between staff, scepter/shield, or GS depending on the situation and what I think I might need for it. Guardians are truly a support class that can be really flexible depending on the situation.

I just wish guardians had a more satisfying ranged weapon option. Scepter is pretty meh, imo.

Shyhalu.4891:

I just wish guardians had a more satisfying ranged weapon option. Scepter is pretty meh, imo.

I have to agree scepter is not that great at all and the weapon attacks are meh at best. The nice thing I have found is when I pair up with my Elemental friend I can face tank some pretty challenging content. I have face tanked Troll in AC and Kholer (moving back for the spin). They basically just drop water/fire fields on me and I combo them every chance I get.

Depends on which fractal. I got both a Guardian and a Mesmer at max level with maxed out gear and I switch to my mesmer whenever the grawl fractal comes up.

There are 3 very good support classes:

• 1st Guardian with good kiting capabilities and OP walls and bubbles.
• 2nd Thief for a lot of skiping with invisibility and good reflect spells(Harpy fractal especially)
• 3rd Mesmer again for a lot of skiping with the portals and reflects.And some more…umm..lets just say more untraditional fights.(Swamp,Ascalon,Harpy,Cliff Side)

Also Thief-Mesmer make a very good combo in the Dredge fractal.So it’s up to you which class you like more.

Astralporing.1957:

In WvW staff is practically obligatory, unless you plan to always roam in small groups/alone. Second weapon may vary depending on your preferences (gs is quite popular, but practically all guardian weapons work well if yu know how to use them).

In PvE staff is less useful (except for zerg farming, where it is the primary choice). My personal preference is scepter+focus/hammer, but sword+focus and GS are also solid melee choices.
Generally (especially in dungeons) you should always have a range set, and melee set.

I’d say the staff is also very useful in PvE, simply because if Empower. With AH, it both significantly boosts the damage if the party (even more if a Mesmer doubles the boon) and act as a second healing skill. No2 is also not a bad heal and No3 is a good group swift and does OK damage on enemies.

Astralporing.1957:

In PvE staff is less useful (except for zerg farming, where it is the primary choice). My personal preference is scepter+focus/hammer, but sword+focus and GS are also solid melee choices.
Generally (especially in dungeons) you should always have a range set, and melee set.

Especially in dungeons you should never use ranged weapons. Ranged weapons are for world bosses to go afk because even if you try to make an effort it ultimately doesn’t matter because of more than 50 bads “contributing” on the same level (read: prologing fight because reading and watching the field is not in the fashion).

In 5 men instance you should actually care about your own contribution and self-improvement.

haviz.1340:

Astralporing.1957:

In PvE staff is less useful (except for zerg farming, where it is the primary choice). My personal preference is scepter+focus/hammer, but sword+focus and GS are also solid melee choices.
Generally (especially in dungeons) you should always have a range set, and melee set.

Especially in dungeons you should never use ranged weapons. Ranged weapons are for world bosses to go afk because even if you try to make an effort it ultimately doesn’t matter because of more than 50 bads “contributing” on the same level (read: prologing fight because reading and watching the field is not in the fashion).

In 5 men instance you should actually care about your own contribution and self-improvement.

It really depends on how good you are. When I try to melee Lupi or Foreman Spurr, I end up dead on the floor. Being dead means no contribution and zero DPS.

Only class that isn’t too good in fractals is ranger. The rest have their ways.

-Necro wells/marks work well in dense packs of trash mobs.
-Thief has a wall, group stealth, and venom share which is very useful in the grawl fractal (slowing the vet’s down). Can also solo p1 of snowblind.
-Engi has a wall, group healing, a rally skill, etc.
-Warrior has dps, rally skill, banners, control (grawls).
-Ele has a wall, heals, fields, dps, control.

I’m sure there are other things for each profession I just don’t play all the of them. That’s just what I’ve seen used by them. Out of it all, ranger and necro I find the least but it comes down to the player’s knowledge.

Xae Isareth.1364:

It really depends on how good you are. When I try to melee Lupi or Foreman Spurr, I end up dead on the floor. Being dead means no contribution and zero DPS.

That’s why I mentioned self-improvement. Range combat in gw2 is very easy and does not make a better player.